


But A Sleep And A Forgetting

by Decepticonsensual



Category: The Transformers (IDW Generation One), Transformers - All Media Types
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-19
Updated: 2017-06-19
Packaged: 2018-11-15 20:42:19
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,257
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11238807
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Decepticonsensual/pseuds/Decepticonsensual
Summary: Rung's funeral, and the great and good of Cybertron - along with Rung's friends, and one or two enemies - have come to pay their respects.  But who among them can say they really knew him?  Nautica watches her adoptive world give her amica endura his final send-off, and wonders.





	But A Sleep And A Forgetting

**Author's Note:**

> This is set sometime after The Dying of the Light, but is not intended to correspond to any particular point in canon.

In the end, they’re all there – swirling around the monument with its sad little hologram, a sea of red badges, blurred by the clean, harmless rain of the new Cybertron.

 

Nautica lowers her head and squints, counting them off in the downpour.  There’s Optimus Prime, of course, standing at the podium; for an Autobot of such long and… well, _long_ service as Rung’s, the Prime’s presence is practically required.  He speaks well, Optimus.  Nautica hasn’t had the opportunity to hear him before, so she listens attentively to the low, grave phrases, beautifully turned; all about the sweetness of rest in the Afterspark, and the honour due to one who served so faithfully.  He only gets Rung’s name wrong once.  

 

Starscream is there because Optimus is.  He speaks next, pointedly calling Rung a _Cybertronian_ hero, whom they’ve come to mourn as _Cybertronians_ together. He doesn’t bother even trying to find out the name of the Cybertronian they’re burying.

 

Windblade is standing next to Starscream; she does not speak, but she catches Nautica’s optic and something complicated passes over her face, a kind of _I haven’t seen you for too long to be sure, but I think you might be not okay, are you?_ Nautica tries to smile.  The metal of her face feels tight.

 

She recognises the Wreckers from First Aid’s posters.  There’s Springer at attention, and Kup,  chewing thoughtfully on a cygar.  Impactor’s optics are shadowed, difficult to read.  Some distance away, she can make out the stark black-and-white frame of Prowl, which surprises Nautica – the Prime’s ceremonial role, she can understand, but Prowl has no official reason to be here.  Nevertheless, he’s staring fixedly at the small coffin, a tic in his cheek as he works his jaw.

 

At the front of the crowd, the last remnants of Cybertron’s intellectual establishment cluster, murmuring among themselves. Perceptor is there, although they seem to be quite showily ignoring him, and for his part, he’s simply watching the flickering holo of Rung’s face.  (It’s a tiny display, relative to the holograms of the war heroes shimmering above the nearby monuments, and the quality isn’t great, but the image – courtesy of Rewind – is perfect. Rung’s optics are soft as he looks down and out of shot, probably at a model ship in his hand, and his smile is unguarded.)  Ratchet is standing a ways back from Rung’s old colleagues, and glaring holes in the backs of their helms. They’ve let Froid out for the day, in chains.  Nautica spends a moment wondering what he’s thinking, and a longer moment trying to hate him; but hatred is a heat she can’t summon.  Not here.

 

Instead, she watches the rain patter on the coffin, and asks herself if this is what Rung would have wanted, or whether he would have preferred a burial in the cool quiet of space.  Of course, Nautica herself left home for adventure, but still wants her final resting place to be on Caminus.  But then, her home wasn’t burnt and remade while she was gone, wiping all traces of her life there away.

 

On her left, Brainstorm presses close.  His wings are half-folded over her, a nominal shelter from the rain, and she loops an arm around his back without looking.  Velocity is a small, warm weight under Nautica’s other arm.  Nightbeat is standing a little apart, arms folded, but when Nautica reaches for his hand, some of the stiffness goes out of his frame and he lets her take it.

 

This is not the first amica they have had to bury.

 

Not far away, Fortress Maximus and Red Alert are standing, entwined in each other’s arms.  There is a raw grief in both their faces that Nautica finds hard to look at – but it is grief, just grief, untempered by fear, and she can’t help but think Rung would be rather proud of them.  Further off, just at the edge of the crowd, Whirl is a ball of motion.  His head swivels on its unnervingly long neck; claws dart and snap; his feet are tracing restless patterns, his rotors slicing across the sheets of rain.  When he stills for a moment, Nautica can see that he’s trembling.  She wants to go over to him, but she can’t imagine a form of comfort he would accept.

 

The leaders and their respective entourages depart right after the coffin is interred, and the crowd begins to trickle away – but more than a few turn back when Rodimus takes the podium.  He’s infamous, after all, the young hotshot who led the quest to find the Knights of Cybertron.  That he knows the crowd is more interested in him than in Rung does not escape Rodimus; Nautica can see it in the sour twist of his mouth.

 

“Rung.” That’s how he starts, just the name – loud and brassy in the sudden silence.  “Rung was with us from day one.  He was the most steadfast and loyal crew member a captain could ask for.  A therapist of rare talent and great compassion, he honoured us with his presence.”

 

Brainstorm grumbles in Nautica’s audial, “This is the same speech he used after Fort Max shot Rung, and we all thought he was… well.”

 

“There is no greater virtue in an Autobot,” Rodimus continues, “than…” And he stops.

 

It’s not a trailing off, as if he’s groping for his next line.  Rodimus simply – stops, like a recording cutting out.  Bright blue optics settle on some point beyond the rain.

 

When he lifts his head and looks down at the crowd, his voice has changed.

 

“Rung let me use him as bait to kill a sparkeater.”  A murmur runs through the crowd, and there are one or two uncertain laughs. Rodimus doesn’t notice.  “I saw him talk down a mech in a murderous rage and hug him afterwards.  He told you what you needed to hear, even if it wasn’t something you were willing to listen to – and I think he tried to tell me a lot more than I ever let him.”  The captain’s sigh is weary.  “He was a nerd whose idea of a night out was painting model ships, and everyone called him Eyebrows, and he was the best – the _best –_ fragging person to have in your corner, no matter what happened.  Oh, and he saved all of space and time.  There isn’t a _slagging one of you_ who doesn’t owe their life to the mech in that tomb.  So take a good Primus-damned look.  He was our brightest spark, and his _name_ is _Rung_.”

 

Nautica doesn’t see Rodimus leave the podium.  The light is spilling from her optics now in wet, heavy drops, and something tight under her plating has loosened.

 

It’s a long time before she’s brought back to herself, Velocity’s hand shaking her shoulder gently.  “Time to say goodbye, Nautica, come on.”

 

They file past the tomb one last time.

 

Nautica thinks of Rung, his optics dimmed, his little frame alone and cold in that box, and she has the overpowering urge to go get him.  To wrench the stone off the tomb and dig with her hands, if she has to, until she can pry the coffin open and gather him up.  They can’t just _leave_ him here.

 

 _That’s completely irrational,_ the scientist part of her brain scolds.

 

 _But natural. Feelings aren’t wrong, Nautica,_ says another voice, fainter, gentler.  It sounds like Rung.

 

The stone is wet under her hand, and Nautica takes in a deep ventilation.

 

“For your words,” she whispers under the sound of the rain.

**Author's Note:**

> “Our birth is but a sleep and a forgetting:  
> The Soul that rises with us, our life's Star,  
> Hath had elsewhere its setting,  
> And cometh from afar:  
> Not in entire forgetfulness,  
> And not in utter nakedness,  
> But trailing clouds of glory do we come...”
> 
> \- William Wordsworth, Ode on Intimations of Immortality


End file.
